


Grieving

by joannereads



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sad!Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24788074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joannereads/pseuds/joannereads
Summary: Just a little, gentle one-shot exploring Steve and Danny after the death of Doris (and every other parent figure Steve has had, poor guy!). It's just me playing with the characters really.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 13
Kudos: 87





	Grieving

Danny is tired, bone tired, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to drive after they get home. He’s not sure when he started thinking of Steve’s house as home, but he knows it didn’t take long after he moved in to help look after him. Fucking Doris. He knows he shouldn’t think ill of the dead, but Steve’s not been the same since he got back. The emptiness is awful to see, to watch, and Danny feels hollow in his gut when he watches the dead stare that Steve gets sometimes. 

They drift into the house. Eddie is glad to see them, twisting and turning about their legs as they make their way to the kitchen for beer (and to feed Eddie, of course) and then back out of the house, beers in hand, and down to the beach. They don’t speak, and Danny knows he should maybe start to push Steve a little more, but he’s just so damn tired. They sip their beers and watch the seemingly endless ocean lap at the shore line.

When Danny wakes it’s dark, the darkness of midnight, and he is alone, slumped in a chair. Neck aching, he looks at Steve’s chair and then his watch. Damn, it’s late. Where’s Steve? Danny rises, notices the empty beer bottles have been moved, and drifts inside and towards the single light in their room.

Their room. Danny has been sleeping in Steve’s room for three and a half weeks. It’s nice, quiet, safe. He knows that it’s convenience really: Steve wasn’t letting him kick Junior out of the spare room (not that Junior is ever really in it) or kick Eddie off the couch. So, it was easier to sleep together. Danny sleeps erratically, aware of the other man’s breathing and the dip in the bed as he tosses and turns. Steve is broken and Danny can’t fix it. He wants to try though. Damn, does he want to try. 

When he reaches the top step he hears a soft snuffling sound coming from the bedroom. He looks through a crack in the door and sees Eddie—whom he thought was making the sound—clutched in Steve’s grasp. Steve’s face is buried in the fur at the back of his neck, his shoulders shaking violently. He’s crying. He’s crying the sobs of the broken hearted and the breath is knocked from Danny’s chest at the sight. Over the past couple of weeks, Danny has frequently wondered when the dam might break and the sadness just become too much for Steve to bear. It seems today is that day. Eddie shuffles up a little, pressing himself into Steve’s chest and Steve glances up, catches sight of Danny through the doorway and suddenly starts dragging his palms over his face, trying to wipe away the tears.  
“I’m sorry, Danny,” he mutters. His embarrassment angers Danny who strides in and grabs Steve’s wrists, circling them with his fingers. Eddie jumps down, shuffling over to his bed near the doorway.  
“Don’t you dare apologise for being sad, Steve, don’t you dare!” The words are angry but the tone is soft gentle. “You’re mourning. That’s okay.”  
Steve looks up at him from his seat at the end of the bed. Danny can see the tears forming, and watches them spill silently over to trickle down Steve’s cheeks.  
“Oh, babe,” he gasps, before dragging Steve’s face into his stomach. Steve’s arms circle Danny’s waist and clutch desperately as the silent tears become body-wracking sobs. Anguish. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. The sadness of a man who has seemingly lost everything. Danny is aware Mary and Joanie still need Steve, but Steve needed parents, and he has none.

They remain that way for a long time. Steve’s sadness is soul deep and baring it like this opens the well to years of distress which were buried under protocol, expectation and emotional barriers in order to try and hold the pieces of him together. Danny doesn’t think it’s overly dramatic to say these things to himself, to recognise that Steve is a million jagged fragments which were held together with lies he told himself instead of the love he needed and deserved. As Steve’s body slowly stills and his breathing becomes less laboured, Danny runs his fingers through Steve’s hair and then pushes him back gently.  
“Come on, let’s go to bed.”

And they do. They don’t change or strip or shower or brush teeth. It’s late—or ridiculously early—and they’re tired. Steve is drained from his outburst, his face blotchy and his eyes grey. Danny aches from standing still so long after falling asleep outside. He knows why Steve left him there now, though. He came to hide. Danny won’t let him hide.

As they shuffle under the covers, Steve flicks off the lamp and then draws Danny into him, tangling limbs and pressing torsos together.  
“Is this okay?” he whispers into Danny’s ear. For his part. Danny suppresses the shiver of lust that flows through him. Now is not the time, not the place. Steve is broken and he needs love, not a good fuck.  
“Of course, babe,” he replies, and if it were even possible Steve seems to shuffle them closer together. He presses his face into Danny’s neck and the heat of each breath expelled ripples up and down Danny’s spine, each one bouncing into the next until his whole body is alight with the sensation. Steve relaxes quickly and is soon asleep, huffing those hot breaths and holding Danny so tightly that he can't hardly move at all. It’s amazing, and Danny revels in the sensation as he slowly drifts off himself.

Danny is suddenly roused awake by a gasping sound, desperate and frantic. Steve is whining in his ear, the nightmare that has plagued what little sleep he has been getting not frightened away by the tears or Danny’s presence. But then, it hadn’t helped before either. Danny begins to softly shush the octopus-like mammoth tangled around him, and Steve’s moans of sadness slowly morph into sad, tearful breaths, before the sound stops altogether.  
“Are you okay?” Danny asks of the mouth now pressed to the back of his neck.  
“Yes, I’m okay, Danno. Thank you.”  
“For what? I’m just lying here, babe.”  
“For not looking at me like I’m a loser, like I’m a failure. For letting me hold you so that I don’t feel so damned alone.” There is a pause and Danny all but holds his breath. “For loving me, Danno.”  
“I do love you, Steve, and that’s why you don’t need to thank me. I’ll always be here.” Danny wriggles around until Steve releases him and little and he can turn to face Steve properly. God! Steve’s eyes are awful—tangled emotions churn as he stares widely at Danny.  
“Danny, I—” he begins. But he can’t find the words. His eyes are red, his throat raw and his heart bare. He knows Danny can see everything, sees it in the way Danny’s expression changes and his mouth drops open a little. “I’m sorry,” Steve says.  
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Danny breathes.  
“I think I’m in love with you,” Steve whispers, “But it’s bad timing because I’m a mess, isn’t it?” Steve’s question in both self-deprecating and hopeful and it snatches the very last of Danny’s breath away. He feels tears in his own eyes this time, and he presses and open palm to Steve’s cheek.  
“Timing is always awful for us, always.”  
“Could we pretend, just for tonight, that none of that other crap has happened? Please?” Steve’s looks desperately into Danny’s eyes. And Danny? Danny wants to give him everything: the stars, the moon, the fucking sun. But he knows now is bad. What if Steve changes his mind? Regrets it? Resents him?

But this is Steve.

“Danno,” he breathes, then leans in and gently presses his lips to Danny’s. Stupid Neanderthal didn’t wait for an answer, and now Danny is wrapped in Steve’s arms, legs and tongues. Danny wants, really wants, but he presses a hand to Steve’s chest and pushes him back, slowly and gently.  
“We can’t, babe. I want to, so fucking much, but you might regret it. You aren’t yourself right now and I can’t . . . I don’t want to be another regret in your life.”  
Steve pauses, searches Danny’s face with his eyes, leaving hot trails across Danny’s skin without even touching him. There’s power in the gaze, a strength that Steve’ seems to have lacked for weeks. A glimpse of the ‘old Steve’, but with something else on top. Recovery, perhaps? Maybe Danny’s imagining it, but it seems as though Steve has new layers of meaning in his life.  
“I could never regret anything with you. I’ve waited so long. So long, and I’m not sure I can keep waiting.”  
“Waited?” Danny gasps. “What do you mean, waited? I was right here. All along. You could have had my any time you wanted. You didn’t want me then.”  
“I have always wanted you,” Steve growls, then pushes and rolls Danny over, forcing himself into the gap between Danny’s legs and locking their pelvises together. “Always,” he growls again. His mouth starts to attack Danny’s, the fierceness of the motion gentled by the soothing of Steve’s tongue against Danny’s lips. Steve’s hands are in Danny’s hair, stroking down his throat, rubbing across his cheekbones, as though Steve is trying to map out every indent. It’s feverish ad desperate, and Danny is harder than he ever remembers being.  
“Babe,” he splutters, trying to push back but failing to get any real distance between them. “Stop.”  
Steve stops. Abruptly. Respecting Danny’s wishes. His face falls but he doesn’t move.  
“I am in love with you, yes, but I won’t be something you use to feel better about yourself.”  
“Danny,” Steve says with a soft smile, brushing back Danny’s hair and melting him a little with the tenderness of the gesture. “I feel better because I know you love me. That I have family left. I’ve felt so alone, lost. My dad, then Joe, then Doris. God, I hate her for everything she put me through, but she was still my mom. But I’m remembering, before my head got messed up by this shit, I’m remembering my Ohana. I found my family because the one I was given was lost. I just wasn’t brave enough to take it. Wasn’t brave enough to push for it. Don’t change the status quo in case you lose everything, you know? But I won’t lose you, will I?” He pauses long enough for Danny to breathe a ‘never’ in response. “So, let’s pretend that I remembered this before I became a grieving mess, and let’s make love. The way we should have done, the way I wanted to days after I met you, and more every day since. You complete me.” Steve ducks his head shyly, smiling and flushed at the sudden rush of words. “Fuck, I’m messing this up, aren’t I?”  
“No. No you really aren’t,” Danny replies and promptly sucks Steve’s tongue back into his mouth. 

He doesn’t know if it’s a good idea or bad, but as they spend the following hours and days learning each other’s bodies in the same way they know each other’s hearts and minds, Danny realises he wouldn’t change a thing. Steve worships him, and Danny washes his soul clean every night. It works. Just like everything else about them, it’s not thought out and it’s not to plan, but it’s beautiful.


End file.
